“Saturday Night Live” really can be described in one way this week: a mixed bag. There were some elements of the show that were really rather entertaining, but there were also some moments where we really had no idea at all just what the show was doing. Often, it harped on the same topics far longer than it needed to … and does anyone else think that handling the same Presidential debate on three separate occasions was a little bit much?

As for the host, Daniel Craig was more or less a ghost throughout the show. We really didn’t see him that often in the early part of the show, and by and large, his bright moments showed that he was really underutilized in the grand scheme of things. We’ll start with the highlights here, and they really come from all across the board this week.

“Weekend Update” in general – Overall, this was one of the best editions of the show that they have had all season long. Seth Meyers’ jokes were mostly roll-on-the-floor funny, and we also had a welcome surprise of Big Bird making an appearance to talk about Mitt Romney dissing “Sesame Street.” Was it really that funny? No, but we love the fact that Big Bird decided to appear in the first place here.

The “Long Island Medium” and James Bond sketches – The two best video pieces of the week were both completely random and completely relevant. The Bond sketch gave us the opportunity to see Craig alongside a hilarious Lea Michele impersonation; meanwhile, the “Long Island Medium” sketch was really just a spot-on look at the sort of things that we are feeling whenever we are watching Theresa Caputo’s TLC show.

Regine and Daniel Craig – This was really the surprise of the night for us. At first, Fred Armisen in drag playing Craig’s new girlfriend was dumb and really just a waste of time. But as the two poured on the PDA and talked about art in front of a bunch of people who could care less, it gradually became funnier and funnier. This is one of Armisen’s best characters, and we hope to see her turn up again at some point in the future. Not bad for a sketch that was actually later in the show.

As for what really didn’t work for this week’s show, the answer really is “everything else.” While we applaud “SNL” for actually going at Obama this week and making the show a little more balanced politically (which is good for comedy regardless of your affiliation), we would be willing to wager that at least half of the show revolved around this. There are other things going on in the world, people!

Even for some of the other sketches featuring Craig, many of them mostly fell short despite his best efforts. The construction worker sketch early in the show was really bad writing, and the “British sitcom” never really went anywhere. Even Muse felt a little bit underwhelming as the musical guest, save for that awesome iPad / guitar thing that one of their musicians was playing.

Overall, this was not a great “Saturday Night Live,” though it was also not horrible. It’s just starting to really take its toll that we are missing some great performers like Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg, and the lack of notable moments for the newbies, couple with the hosts not getting to do as much as we would like, really are making this far from the same exciting show it was last season.